Beyond Duality

Janaka sat in contemplation, yet a subtle disturbance rippled through his mind. He turned to Ashtavakra.

"Master, I have understood that I am not this body, not these thoughts. Yet the world still appears divided—pleasure and pain, gain and loss, honor and disgrace. How does the wise one see these pairs?"

Ashtavakra smiled, his eyes carrying the stillness of a mountain lake.

"O Janaka, you speak of pairs as if they were two. But tell me—when you see a wave rise and fall, are there truly two events, or one movement of the ocean?"

"One movement," Janaka admitted slowly. "The rising and falling are inseparable."

"Just so. Pleasure and pain are not two forces battling within you. They are the single movement of awareness playing as experience. The wise one does not choose between them, for he knows there is nothing to choose between."

Janaka leaned forward. "But surely we must prefer happiness to suffering? Is this not the natural way?"

"Natural to whom?" Ashtavakra's voice was soft but piercing. "To the body, perhaps. To the mind, certainly. But you are not the body. You are not the mind. You are the witness before whom these preferences arise and dissolve."

"Then what am I to do when pain comes?"

"What does the sky do when clouds gather? Nothing. It remains as it is—vast, untouched, indifferent. The clouds come, the clouds go. The sky neither welcomes nor rejects. This is your true nature."

Janaka closed his eyes. "I see it. When I watch closely, pleasure contains the seed of its own passing. And pain, too, is merely a temporary coloring of awareness."

"Now you are speaking as the Self," Ashtavakra said. "The ignorant one believes he is trapped between opposites, like a man standing between two walls that press closer. But look carefully—are there walls? Or only the imagining of walls?"

"There is only awareness," Janaka said, his voice gaining certainty. "The pairs exist only when I believe I am something that can be affected by them."

"Precisely. When you know yourself as the limitless Self, where is bondage and where is liberation? Both are concepts appearing in you. The snake was always a rope. The darkness was always the absence of looking."

Janaka opened his eyes, and they shone with recognition. "Then there is nothing to transcend. No duality to overcome. The very effort to go beyond duality creates the illusion that duality exists."

Ashtavakra nodded. "You have seen it. The wise one neither seeks nor avoids. He does not cling to stillness nor fear movement. He is like the ocean that remains unmoved whether its surface ripples or storms rage. The depths remain untouched."

"And what of this world, master? Does it disappear?"

"It neither disappears nor remains. The question itself dissolves. When you stop asking whether the world is real or unreal, you discover something beyond both—pure being, without a second. In that recognition, you are free of the tyranny of pairs."

Janaka bowed low. "I sought to escape duality, and in seeking, I created it. Now, resting as awareness, there is nothing to escape, nothing to embrace. Only this."

"Only this," Ashtavakra agreed. "And in that, everything is included. This is the end of philosophy and the beginning of peace."

The morning sun cast long shadows across the palace floor, yet for Janaka, there was neither light nor shadow—only the radiant Self, playing as all appearances, bound by none.